“There! They think you’re squeezable, you see,” said Wylie in triumph. “When you’re made High Commissioner of Emathia, you’d better send for me to be your commander-in-chief, and put a little stiffening into you.”
“All right. Mind, it’s a bargain!” cried Maurice, returning to the train at the summons of the guard, and smiling to think how closely Wylie’s jest had approached the possible truth.
“Oh, Maurice, it’s an omen!” came in an awestruck whisper from Zoe, who had been at the window.
“A fiddlestick!” responded Maurice lightly. “Now for thrilling mountain scenery, with revolutionary bands thrown in gratis!”
The train was now entering the mountains, and the four young people established themselves at the corridor window, which presented the most extensive views, but Mrs Smith refused to leave the compartment. Emathia possessed the most brutal and savage scenery in the world, she declared, and it made her shiver even to look at it. She would endeavour to forget it, and if a French novel and slumber are aids to forgetfulness, it was not long before she did so. The prospect from her side of the carriage was certainly not inspiriting, since it was limited to the rocky cliff in which the track had been blasted out, but on the other side there was something like a view, as Maurice said. From the very edge of the line, dark woods sank down, down, to depths which the eye could not penetrate, rising again on the other side of the valley to heights behind which the sun was already setting, at barely five o’clock on a summer afternoon. In one or two places there was a glimpse of foaming water, but generally the woods alone were visible. They made her feel weird, Zoe said; it was like an enchanted forest. She did not mind going through them in the train, but to think of venturing into them on foot was enough to make the bravest heart quail.
“We ought to reach the great viaduct which crosses the river presently,” said Wylie. “I believe the line winds so much just there that from this end of the train you see the engine and the first half apparently at right angles with you as it enters on the bridge.”
“There it is!” cried Eirene presently. She and Zoe were sitting on the seat below the window, Maurice and Wylie standing behind them. They all looked out eagerly to see the famous bridge, and withdrew their heads again laughing, with ruffled hair, for in this narrow valley the wind was strong. Eirene drew back to adjust a hairpin, the two men were laughing at one another’s dishevelled aspect, and only Zoe was still looking out when that happened which she would never forget, though she could not determine exactly the sequence of the several events. In anticipation of the appearance of the head of the train, she was keeping her eyes fixed upon the bridge, when the end nearest her rose suddenly in the air, suddenly and, as it seemed, quietly. She had opened her mouth to cry, “Look at the bridge!” when the words were drowned by the sound of an explosion, which must have been simultaneous with the upheaval, but seemed to follow at a perceptible interval. The train rocked and staggered, the glass from the windows and lamps shivered and fell in showers with a curious tinkling noise, Maurice and Wylie were thrown violently across the corridor. Zoe found herself and Eirene on their feet, gazing at one another with dilated eyes, heard Wylie shout to them angrily to sit down, had a vague idea that the train had left the metals and was trying to climb the mountain—or what was the meaning of those agonised jerks which felt like earthquakes? She knew that she was saying something foolish—“the hill above the line was not quite so steep here, was it?”—but the words were frozen on her lips. The floor was slipping away beneath her, the place where the window had been was somehow rising to the roof, then there came a great crash, a sensation of falling through space, and all was silence.
CHAPTER V.
THE JEWEL-CASE.
When Zoe came to herself, the first sensation of which she was conscious was a stinging taste in her mouth, the next the dark woods cutting the sky opposite her. She cried out weakly, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight.
“That’s right!” said a voice. “How do you feel?”